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30 April, 2011

This is my little tribute to the royal wedding of William and Kate. I stayed up until late last night to watch them have their first kiss as man and wife on the Buckingham Palace balcony. Kate was such a beautiful, elegant bride in her fitted lace wedding dress! I'm a hopeless romantic...

Princesses Rule! from OPI's Princess Charming collection is the most royal sounding nail polish in my stash. I've owned this for a few years and wear it all year round because it's such an easy colour to wear. It's a gorgeous glass-flecked icy pink which shimmers madly but still looks elegant. I applied three coats to wear this on its own but it would work equally well as a layering polish. Onto the sugary goodness:

29 April, 2011

This gorgeous colette faux leather makeup purse was a gift from a close girlfriend of mine! I just happened to notice and comment on her edgy new makeup purse and its amazing ability to store EVERYTHING in it so she kindly offered to buy me one. How could I possibly refuse?

So, how many products can I fit into this purse for everyday touch-ups and random emergencies?

In no particular order these are my necessities - and some optional extras:﻿

28 April, 2011

Another great award from the lovely Vintage at Vintage Makeup. She has fuelled my lemmings for Wet 'n' Wild, Stila among other lovely things so please check out her blog if you like pretty, affordable and animal friendly cosmetics.

"The Liebster Award is designed to bring well deserved additional recognition to those bloggers with less than 300 followers. If you receive the award you link back to the blogger that nominated you and nominate 3 more blogs."

Here are the three blogs, plus an honourable mention (among many worthy blogs) I nominate for this award:

thatleanne Leanne has a lovely blog which specialises in freehand nail art with some great nail polish swatches and the occasional makeup post thrown in. Her nail art designs are originals and have included koalas and the cute little pigs from the Angry Birds game! Her blog makes me smile :)

bini blogs beauty Bini blogs fearlessly about beauty products so you get the fails thrown in with the winners. She has a wicked sense of humour, both in her own blog posts and the cheeky comments she puts up on my blog. This girl makes me laugh!!

Miss PrissypantsDee's another fearless beauty blogger who puts up tons of great swatches of cool affordable beauty brands such as NYX and Wet'n'Wild (My current lemming!!)

Pretty Random Kaz has an awesome nail polish blog and is the kind person who introduced me the Gumleaf Mafia. She's another witty, funny blogger and posts fantastic 'Saturday swatch party' posts swatching loads of unusual HTF nail polish shades. Last time I looked she was awefully close to 300 followers so she probably doesn't need my help but she does deserve an honourable mention!

27 April, 2011

This mani is from a few weeks ago when I had to do an ultra conservative look. I was one of three people on an interview panel representing my department so I had to look the part. Tickle My France-y from OPI's 2008 France collection was my choice. This is a lovely warm creamy nude colour which reminds me of very milky coffee. Two coats gave a glossy even finish and it lasted beautifully the entire week. It looked very chic and I think it almost gave me the mannequin hands look:

26 April, 2011

I really don't know how I made it to 100 posts so quickly! Thinking back to when I first started out I figured I'd be posting about once, maybe twice per week on average so I have well and truly exceeded my expectations. Somehow I've managed to keep up with daily posts and I'm still enjoying it!

Anyway here's a little bit of manicure fun I had with my close friend Wendy and her daughter Georgia the other day. Stand by for lots of pictures!

First up my layering experiment. This is two coats of Inglot 205 (green/gold flakies) layered over Austin-Tatious Turquoise. I was really pleased with the result.

25 April, 2011

As promised I'm about to 'fess up again on the cost of beauty because I wanted to find out how much my weekday grooming costs. Just to remind you, my basic 'natural' weekend makeup tallied up to a total cost of $156.50 which was already pretty shocking!

Here's what I wore to work last week. All prices are retail:

Face:

MAC Select Sheer pressed powder (NC 20) - $44AUD

YSL Touche Eclat (2) - $55AUD

MAC Sheertone blush (Blushbaby) - $41AUD

Subtotal: $140AUD

Eyes:

MAC Lustre eyeshadow (Tempting) - $33AUD

MAC Veluxe pearl eyeshadow (Soft Force) - $33AUD

MAC Powerpoint eye pencil (Duck) - $32AUD

Lancome Definicils mascara (Black) - $52AUD

Subtotal: $150AUD

Lips:

MAC Amplified lipstick (Cosmo) - $36AUD

Wet'n'Wild lipliner pencil (666) - $4AUD approx (this was actually a gift from a friend so technically it's at no cost)

Subtotal: $40AUD

Total cost:A whopping $340, more than double my weekend look!! And that doesn't include skincare and perfume! As I very rarely wear foundation it also wasn't included.

This exercise has been very interesting and quite a bit of a reality check for me. I'm now working on my budget face challenge which I'll post soon.

24 April, 2011

I finally got around to trying one of my Texas collection minis - Austin-Tatious Turquoise. This is a gloriously shimmery turquoise which changes from ocean blue to green to a pinky-purple in the light. It has a slightly sheer almost watery finish so three coats of colour were required to bring the polish to full opacity.

Here are the pictures:

Lamplight﻿

Outdoors shade

﻿

Full sun

Before I go, I couldn't let Easter Sunday go by without some cute bunnies!!

23 April, 2011

I've got to confess I've been just a little bit infatuated with essence cosmetics since discovering their cheap and cheerful line at Priceline a few months ago. I've pretty much loved their nail polish and eyeshadow and for $2.95AUD each I could easily justify trying one of their little tubes of glossy lipbalm. It started with just one, but after trying it I went back and bought the whole lot! How old am I again?? Not too old to have some girly fun!

Here are the cute little tubes (0.28fl.oz/8,5ml each) and some swatches on the back of my hand:

From left to right these are:

Sparkling cherry - the picture doesn't show it but this cherry-scented gloss does have a very subtle sparkle

Toffee frappucino - the most opaque in this range, a shimmery caramel gloss, with a sweet coffee scent﻿

Berry sorbet - this was the first tube in my collection. Gorgeous deep blue-pink shimmery gloss with a delicious sugary lolly scent. Aussie girls should know what I mean when I say it smells just like Redskin lollies - Yummy!

Pink dragonfruit - deep red-pink sparkle, smells like dragonfruit?!?

These are all very wet glosses and therefore they need constant reapplication but I don't think that's an issue considering the price. They're great to throw in your jeans pocket or purse for a bit of inexpensive fun - and they're suitable for girly girls of all ages.

22 April, 2011

Another quick post to share my new China Glaze polishes with you. I love these colours because they're all rich and opulent. I think they'll be great to wear this winter.

From left to right these are: Midnight Mission, Stella, and Draped in Velvet

And up close:

I'm thinking of ordering some more China Glaze from Trans Design because of the cheaper prices and huge range. Can anyone give me their opinion/experiences with Trans Design? Good idea? Are they a reliable etailer? I'd appreciate to hear your thoughts.

21 April, 2011

As I was saying the other day I had a craving for colour. Today's a gorgeous sunny day, I've got the day off, so let's go for some serious colour - neon fuschia creme!

I bought LA Girl Platforms last year, inspired by the Juicy Couture's advertising campaign for Viva La Juicy perfume. The girl in the magazine ad had the most amazing screaming fuschia nails which stood out against her blonde hair and alabaster skin. The ad caught my attention but obviously not in the way it was intended!

Platform is a shade from LA Girl's Disco Brites range. It's a black light nail polish intended to glow at the nightclub. I don't have any black lightbulbs to test it and show you but I'm happy enough with the colour during the daylight!! This was two coats:

To pretty this up a little more I added some Essence nail stickers to my ringer fingers:

20 April, 2011

This is a quickie post to let you know - just in case you don't already cos it came out last week - about the freebie deal in this month's issue of Shop Til You Drop magazine.

Shop mag and Kit cosmetics have collaborated to produce a limited edition free nail polish shade called SHOP Loves Sunset, described on Shop mag's website as a "creamy blend of lolly pink and peach". I've picked one up myself and I think it's a pretty accurate description although I've not had the chance to wear it - Yet!

If you love Kit nail polish then pick up the May issue of Shop Til You Drop and head down to your nearest Kit store!

Abstract is the last of my vintage MAC polishes. This is definitely the quiet, retiring shade of the bunch, bordering on boring actually. Abstract is a dusty mauve-pink satin shimmer which blends in with my hands. I can imagine I bought it as a safe shade to wear to work - pretty but doesn't draw any attention to itself.

I applied two coats of colour but I still noticed some uneven patches on the nail. Oh well, this is a bit of fail for me:

After three days of wearing this to the office I'm craving some colour!

19 April, 2011

I thought I'd push it a bit further with a few more posts along this theme. The first one will be on the cost of my weekday (office) face just to scare you girls a bit more about the price of beauty *sniggers*. The other post will be a personal challenge post to see how low I can go in price without skimping on quality. This one will be a retail rather than online purchase challenge just because I like to try and then buy on the spot!

Anyway, moving on to today's post. I was having a girly afternoon with some close friends a few weekends ago. You know what I mean - a long lazy gossipy lunch, followed by wandering in and out of stores, finding little treasures long the way...

We were browsing around the Witchery women's fashion store when I spied their eyeshadow palettes at the checkout register selling at $19.95AUD. I love chic packaging, so I fell in love with the minimalist presentation of this palette and the neutral shades:

Unfortunately this palette has no name!﻿

I created a quick daytime look using a combination of all of these shades over eye base and this was the result:

I was reasonably happy with the soft neutral look but found that this eyeshadow had creased a little at the end of the day (even with eye base). Hmmm.

I also picked up some bling in the form of yet another pair of silver earrings!! These cost $12.95AUD.

Funnily enough, I didn't actually buy any clothes!
That's all for now.

18 April, 2011

Luxurious really blew me out of the water when I applied it and I can't believe I haven't worn this shade before. This chrome mauvey pink is luminous, blingy and definitely out there - it lives up to its name! Two coats gave good even coverage with minimal streaking. Chrome polishes tend to be unforgiving, showing up every little ridge on the nail so I gave mine a good buffing and applied a thick base coat before applying colour.

Here's the result. All photos were taken outdoors:

Full sun﻿

Shade

As gorgeous as this was on its own I wondered how it would look with coat of OPI's Black Shatter﻿. I wasn't disappointed!